Purekit, an online seller of footwear and outdoor clothing, has
acquired apparel etailer Extremepie.com for an undisclosed sum.
Extremepie’s previous owner Extreme Group had put the business on
the market in July last year in order to concentrate on its
licensing activities. The deal was completed in March and saw
Extremepie’s operations move from Hampshire to Purekit’s Essex
base. Purekit retained just a handful of Extremepie staff on a
consultancy basis to help with integration.
Andrew Baldwin, Purekit’s coowner and group marketing director,
says Extremepie is a strong domain with great potential. He
expects the business to be fully integrated with Purekit’s
systems in time for Christmas and estimates that the brand will
add £500,000 to sales within 18 months. By integrating
Extremepie with a larger online retail group, says Baldwin, the
brand has immediately benefited from economies of scale, cutting
its overheads and returning it to profitability. As part of
Purekit, Extremepie will continue to trade as a separate website,
but there will be some crossover of brands, and the opportunity
for cross-promotion, though Baldwin is mindful of
“spamming” Extremepie’s customers and vice
versa.
This is the second deal for Purekit in the past year and Baldwin
says the company learnt some lessons following its acquisition of
Fitness Footwear in November. As a result of the takeover,
customer service levels suffered in the run up to Christmas.
“Service was not as we would have liked it to be,” he
says, “but now, across the Purekit group, every order
placed before 3pm is despatched the same day”.
Aside from the one-off costs associated with the two acquisitions
during the past six months, Baldwin says the £4 million
Purekit group, founded in 2009 as Pure Footwear, is a profitable
business. Once the acquired businesses are fully integrated and
stabilised, Baldwin says the company will consider mailing again.
Although Purekit is online-only, Extremepie had been mailing a
binannual catalogue to its database. Baldwin says the company is
reviewing the potential of a print catalogue, especially for
customer retention purposes.
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